World News - Putin: Iran could conduct enrichment in Russia U.S., EU hope to gain support for tough stance on Tehran nuclear research

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday that Iran has not excluded the possibility of conducting its uranium enrichment in Russia -- a proposal that could be a way out of escalating tensions over Iran's nuclear program. Putin, speaking after a meeting with German chancellor Angela Merkel, said "one of the main problems is the enrichment of uranium. "We proposed to our Iranian partners to set up a joint enrichment venture on Russian territory. We have heard various opinions from our Iranian partners on that issue. One of them has come from the Foreign Ministry -- our partners told us they did not exclude the implementation of our proposal." ... http://www.msnbc.msn.com

Mehmet Ali Agca, the man who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981, is unfit to do his military service, NTV television quoted a military hospital as saying on Monday, days after he was freed from an Istanbul jail.The decision leaves Agca at liberty, pending an appeal from the Justice Ministry against his early release from prison. "Mehmet Ali Agca is a free person and he can go anywhere he wants," Agca's lawyer Mustafa Demirbag told reporters. Turkey's army had wanted Agca, 48, to do his missed military service, which is a legal obligation for all Turkish men. His lawyers argued he was not well enough to do a stint in the army. Agca served 19 years in an Italian jail for trying to kill the Pope before being pardoned at the Pontiff's behest in 2000. He was then extradited to Turkey to serve a separate sentence for the murder of a Turkish newspaper editor and for robbery. ...http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1510470

Turkey said on Monday a fourth person had died of avian flu as authorities slaughtered tens of thousands of birds to try to contain the outbreak. Indonesia announced a 13-year-old girl had also died at the weekend of the H5N1 virus, while two of her siblings were ill. Indonesia has previously reported 12 deaths from bird flu.Human victims had been confined to East Asia until this month, when three infected children from the same family died in eastern Turkey, showing the deadly H5N1 strain had reached the crossroads of Europe, Asia and the Middle East."The test results of Fatma Ozcan who died yesterday (Sunday) were found to be positive," the Health Ministry's bird flu coordination center said in a statement carried by state-run news agency Anatolian.The girl, believed to be in her teens, came from the small town of Dogubayazit, home to the three other children who died....http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060116/ts_nm/birdflu_dc

Police in Strasbourg have used tear gas and water cannon to disperse thousands of dockers who marched to the European Parliament in a mass protest. Protesters threw firecrackers and stones, smashing several windows. The dockers, from across the EU, had converged in Strasbourg to protest at controversial proposals to open up port services to greater competition. Those who did not travel to France downed tools, causing disruption at major ports from Greece to Sweden. The EU's Port Package II proposals will be debated in Strasbourg on Tuesday, with a vote expected on Wednesday. Among the main ports affected by the strike action are Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Antwerp in Belgium and Le Havre in France. Pascal Galeote, deputy head of the Marseille port's branch of the CGT union said: "The commercial activities of the Autonomous Port of Marseille (PAM), in Marseille and Fos-sur-Mer, are completely stopped. "All activities handling, operating, naval repairs and oil are blocked."...http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4617262.stm

A man on a motorbike drove up to a crowd watching a wrestling match in an Afghan border town Monday, killing 20 people and wounding at least 30 others, the deadliest in a recent spate of attacks. The attack came hours after a bomb hit a convoy of Afghan army trucks loaded with troops in the southern city of Kandahar, killing four people and wounding 16. The man on the motorbike detonated explosives strapped to his body near a crowd of about 100 people watching a wrestling match at a fair in Spinboldak, a key crossing point into southern Pakistan, said Kandahar provincial Gov. Asadullah Khalid. "The wrestling match was about to end when the explosion occurred," Khalid said. He said that 20 people were killed, as well as the attacker, and more than 20 were wounded, at least five seriously. ...http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/01/16/world/main1210080.shtml?CMP=OTC-RSSFeed&source=RSS&attr=World_1210080

A helicopter crashed north of Baghdad Monday, but the status of the two-man crew wasn't immediately known, and a car bomb detonated next to a police convoy and killed six people. Police and hospital officials said the bomb killed a six-year-old child and five police officers in Muqdadiya, about 56 miles north of the capital. Najim Abid, a medic at Muqdadiya general hospital, said the blast which also injured sixteen civilians and three policemen. It was not immediately known what caused the helicopter to crash around 8:20 a.m., and the military didn't immediately release any additional information. Among the helicopters used by the Army that have a two-person crew are the AH-64 Apache and the OH-58 Kiowa reconnaissance. ...http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/02/24/iraq/main541815.shtml?CMP=OTC-RSSFeed&source=RSS&attr=World_541815